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Topic: Debolting (Read 6074 times)

An excerpt from the conclusion of the Conway area bolting meetings reads:

"The concensus among local climbers is to maintain the character and integrity of existing routes."

The two bolt anchors placed above both the Pendulum and Mordor roofs clearly contradict this sentiment. This is an opportunity for the bolter to offer a convincing argument for the placement of these bolts or remove them himself, before they are removed by myself or an associate.

Bolts such as these and other intolerable placements on existing routes or on naturally protectable new routes are generally not welcome on the crags of the conway area. Routes like 'Thin Air' with unnecessary bolts should not serve as a model or justification for bolts on the Pendulum and Mordor roofs or other routes.

Danny Webster

:Routes like 'Thin Air' with unnecessary bolts should not serve as a model or justification for bolts on the Pendulum and Mordor roofs or other routes.:

And why not??I agree with you 100% on the retro-bolting but I don't see how you can make a legitimate argument using a statement like that. It's classic "do as I say not as I do" preaching. Yeah, yeah, I know you didn't place those bolts but it's clear you didn't place the ones on Pendulum and Mordor either and yet you are demanding their removal. BTW there are dozens of other "unnecessary" bolts that have been added to Conway area crags in recent years and one does not need to look too far beyond 'Thin Air' to find them.

No doubt the bolts on Pendulum and Mordor should be removed but I don't think you are making a good argument until you start including all the other 'unnecessary' bolts as well.

what are you talking about webster? it's not complicated. if the bolts are unnecessary then they should be removed, and i'm grateful to the people willing to swing out over the void to correct the mistake. if there is an abundance of routes that have unnecessary bolts, then they should not serve as the model for future projects. it's bad enough the mistakes have been made. moving into the future, let's stopping making the same mistakes over and over again. in other words, one should NOT say to themselves, 'since that is how it's done on thin air, that's how i'm going to do it on my new project.'

Logged

Delphi

As we go through life, we tune ourselves to our surroundings in a modulating flow of focus. Sometimes we are completely wrapped up in our inner world of thoughts. Later we maybe directed outwards, unthinkingly absorbed in facinated observation of external events.

The mode which we call the sacred is one where inner focus and outer focus are balanced and blended, where there is a reciprocal mirroring of idea and sentiment from within and imagery and sensation from without. It is a trance state, ripe with knowledge. This knowledge seems to come to us from a wise source which calls us home.

Home means, our mother earth. With this thought, we remember to enfold ourselves in the forgotten arms of the landscape. We feel the earth are are connected with the larger body which nourishes us. The Garden of Eden is a place out of which we cast ourselves every day when we forget our connection to the Mother Planet and imagine that we are separate and must do for ourselves. The support of earth and atmosphere is so continuous and reliable that we have become closed to them in our ordinary awareness and thus unconciously abuse their loving hospitality and long tolerance.

The faith of native peoples is aimed at renewing this awareness on a dialy basis. We crawl like nursing infants on the belly of the mother earth and bask in the radiant energy of the father sun. Ritual and ceremony are the means to reawaken the sacred sensing. Without this we are cold and unhappy in whatever we may do, though we try to hide those feelings from ourselves behind an existential mask.

What do we know about places of power? While we can bring them the analyses of geometry, electromagnetics, and dowsing science, we are still thrown back again and again on subjective testimony and folklore. Enchantment is not to be measured. The fact stands that people are drawn to these spots, have strong and meaningful experiences here, and go away transformed and renewed. And what happens here adds to the power of the place; we seem to feel the presence of ancestors and earlier travellers whose pilgrimage took them down this path and held them here for a time.

Upon approaching or entereing the zone of a sacred shrine, an ancient and wonderfully subtle sense of reverence is called forth, asking for silence and respect. If we heed this signal, and rest with it patiently, we may find ourselves rewarded with a gift of knowing. This gift comes in personal form, and the revelations associated with places of power are accounts of the cultural mind of a given individual in relationship to the mind of the Earth. The quality of that transmission is conditioned by the clarity and character of the receiver.

I feel compelled to add that, having been at one of the meetings on bolting, I do not agree that a consensus was reached regarding double bolt anchors. We all agreed that adding protection bolts to a route significantly changed a route's character, and some felt that replacing tree anchors, etc., with bolt anchors degraded a route, but there was no clear agreement on this. Many (myself included) felt that double bolt anchors were acceptable where a) Natural anchors have disappeared or become dangerous, and b) where double bolt anchors significantly facilitated the movement of traffic on routes (i.e. Thin Air).

...exactly. There is no need for increased traffic flow on the routes in question here, as they are very high standard free climbs, or tackled alternately as slow and methodical aid routes. It should be noted that said anchors were just fine, unquestionable trad anchors. The two gentlemen who started this thread are offering a polite, albeit curt, alternative to angry chopping by well-heeled, pipe-wielding 'associates.'

In addition to the two reasons/justifications offered by Dogboy for the installation of 'new' 2bolt anchors, we should include this one: a reasonable and realistic local consensus.

Danny Webster

T-rad,Unless I misunderstood the original post I don't think they were talking about new routes so much as retro-bolting existing routes, putting bolts where none existed in order to make an established climb safer or more convenient. Of course I could be wrong and they could be talking about all new bolting, period, in which case I don't agree with them and hope they get crabs.

Delphi,That must be some good s***t you're on. Does it always make you ramble like that? I'd love to try some if it doesn't.

Will Mayo

The Oracle of Delphi has spoken! Long way from Greece! Many will read; who will understand? What think the Sophists? Is this within the ethical and enlightened way? Someone is about to go Socratic on this forum - I have had a premonition.

Would anyone know where one would find the dissemination of the Conway Bolting Doctrine? The best prevention is education, I am told.

ah, dissemination of imformation regarding debolting, rebolting, improving and destruciton. once everyone agrees then there may be a forum for what you suggest. the alternative, and most likely option, is for a larger community(read:everyone) 'meeting' with slides and beer and good cheer allaround, where we may discuss said near-agreement with candor. this is an interesting process, to be sure.

so - a meeting, in neutral territory, with everyone who climbs in the area invited and even encouraged to attend...where all can discuss the state of the state, and hopefully hear everyone else's side and possibly achieve some meeting of the minds. it is at the least a good idea. involving the greater community every 10 years isn't a bad idea!

Tomcat

Re:meeting, everyone gets 5 minutes to talk. Re:Thin air, let's not kid ourselves, the bolts are there to facilitate a certain commercial enterprise, I could place my entire rack at the ledge above the 3rd pitch. Imagine the cordelette!

this is a popular misconception. the original anchor bolts on top of the block above the Thin Air chimney were placed there by the AMC well over 25 years ago as a part of a demonstration of rescue techniques. Kurt Winkler and I replaced the rusty ones last summer with 3/8 stainless because people have come to expect them there, and we were already replacing other bolts on the face anyway. in addition it keeps there from being a mess at that place when one party is belaying someone coming up and another is continuing. in our opinion there would be gear & rope everywhere and the potential for a big SNAFU.

I will say that he and I spent considerable time cleaning up old 1/4 inch bolts that had been chopped and pounded over and left there. I chopped many of them as close to the rock as I could and covered them with a mix of crushed rock and epoxy. it's hard to tell where they were now. I also had one of the new bolts fail to go in properly and so I chopped it and cleaned it up.

if anyone goes out and decides to chop existing bolts, I can only hope that they will make the same effort to clean up their work. otherwise, they are making a bigger environmental and ethical impact than the original bolts made!

An excerpt from the conclusion of the Conway area bolting meetings reads: Â Â "The concensus among local climbers is to maintain the Â Â Â Â character and integrity of existing routes."

The two bolt anchors placed above both the Pendulum and Mordor roofs clearly contradict this sentiment. This is an opportunity for the bolter to offer a convincing argument for the placement of these bolts or remove them himself, before they are removed by myself or an associate.

Bolts such as these and other intolerable placements on existing routes or on naturally protectable new routes are generally not welcome on the crags of the conway area. Routes like 'Thin Air' with unnecessary bolts should not serve as a model or justification for bolts on the Pendulum and Mordor roofs or other routes.

Dana Drummond, Bayard Russell

How long have these anchors been there? IMO, there's no plausible reason for bolt anchors at either of these locations. In both cases there are good cracks at the stances above the roofs. You have to place plenty of gear to climb to these anchors, so what's the point (unless it's to facilitate top-roping, which seems inappropriate 4 or 5 pitches up the cliff).